This invention relates generally to a method and system for collecting and analyzing data from relatively complex equipment, and, more particularly, to a computer-based method and system for acquiring data simultaneously from one or more locomotives for testing, diagnostic and predictive maintenance.
The testing, diagnosis, repair, maintenance and/or other servicing of generally complex equipment, such as mobile assets that may include on-road or off-road vehicles, ships, airplanes, railroad locomotives, trucks, and other forms of complex equipment including industrial equipment, consumer appliance equipment, medical imaging equipment, equipment used in industrial processes, telecommunications, aerospace applications, power generation, etc., often involves complex and time consuming processes.
With respect to transportation equipment such as locomotives, the efficient and cost-effective operation of a locomotive or fleet of locomotives demands minimizing the number of failures and vehicle downtime. The expeditious and accurate performance of testing, diagnostic, repair, maintenance and/or other services to locomotives are important for competitive operation. Locomotives typically undergo running maintenance services several times per year, at which time the locomotives are removed from service.
Performing such scheduled maintenance services and ensuring that the locomotives are within acceptable limits of readiness prior to being put back into service is typically performed by trained technicians. Locomotives may also experience failures while in service and undergo daily inspections. The scope and quantity of these services adds a significant cost to an operators' expenses, especially to those having hundreds or more locomotives in service.
Locomotives incorporate various types of on-board sensors that continuously monitor on-board operational parameters of systems, subsystems and/or other components of the locomotive while in operation. Data indicative of such parameters may be stored in on-board database, which may be housed within various locomotive computers. A technician may perform running maintenance services by retrieving portions of this data and entering it into a independent computer for analysis. This process is labor intensive and error prone, which increases operators' costs and may lead to incorrect testing and diagnosis. This approach for data collection and analysis is slow, limits the type and quantity of data retrieved and analyzed, and limits the extent to which the data may be analyzed for testing, diagnostic and predictive maintenance.
Current testing of locomotives during maintenance is performed one locomotive at a time with a manual interface. In this respect, a trained technician will “load-up” or self load the locomotive and manually record into a separate database information displayed on an information display. The technician will enter a desired operating parameter to retrieve data associated with that parameter from an on-board computer. The parameter data is then manually recorded into a laptop computer and subsequently transmitted to another database for further analysis. This process is labor intensive and time consuming, and it may typically take two trained technicians about four hours to perform certain maintenance services on one locomotive.
Thus, there is a need for an improved method and system for collecting data from one or more locomotives that increases the quantity and type of data of data collected and which improves the accuracy and reliability of testing, diagnostic and predictive maintenance. Embodiments of the invention disclosed herein provide a significant reduction in operators' labor costs and improves the overall operating efficiency of a locomotive or fleet of locomotives.